Cooking Games
and Activities for Kids

Cooking provides so many wonderful opportunities for learning all kinds of principles and encouraging creative experimentation. It's also great preparation for when your children move out of home and will need to rely on their own cooking skills. Developing a real enjoyment of cooking is well worthwhile... and who knows, you might even have a budding gourmet chef in your family! On this page are some great ideas, games and activities for getting your kids involved in the fun of cooking! See bottom of page for important things to keep in mind!

INSPIRED BY THE PIZZA GARDEN

This activity combines cooking with a great gardening activity. The garden part of the activity naturally needs to be started quite some time earlier, to allow the plants to grow.

Here are the instructions for the PIZZA GARDEN.

Once your garden is ready to harvest, get your kids to think about the ingredients they could use- then send them out to pick the veggies and herbs they have chosen.

Now it's time for your budding Pizza Artistes to get to work. You could use pre-made bought bases, which come in either small one person sizes, or larger size, frozen or fresh. Another bought alternative is the many varieties of flat type breads that are available. Alternatively, they could make their own pizza dough, either by hand or using a bread machine. This also gives opportunities for discussion about yeast and what is going on there. Uncooked pizza dough can sometimes also be bought from a supermarket.

Once they have their base, they can begin to create!

Older children might like to even make their own sauce to put on the base, using tomatoes, onions, garlic and herbs they have grown, blended together in a vitamiser or with a hand held stab mixer.

Next come the fresh picked veggies and herbs with a sprinkling of cheese if you like. If you don't use dairy, pizzas without cheese are actually quite nice, though different.

Bake your pizzas and enjoy!

TAG TEAM COOKING

This is a fun game, but the edibility of the results is not guaranteed! It is probably best played with older children, who have at least a basic understanding of some cooking principles. It's a great party game for kids who like to cook!

One child begins the process by choosing two ingredients to combine- such as maybe butter and sugar creamed together, or maybe melted. Then the next child chooses another ingredient and adds that... and so on until all children have had a turn. They can go through again if they decide their recipe isnt finished yet. No talking between players is allowed. Each child chooses the next step with their own judgement alone. You may even like to only allow the child whose turn it currently is in the kitchen at the time... or it may add to the fun with all watching.

Once the food is cooked... everyone ets to taste test it! Discussion could follow as to what they could have changed to make the end result tastier.

THEMED CREATION

Give you kids a theme- or let them choose one. They then create a dish which represents that theme.
Some theme ideas:

Alternatively, let your kids cook a secret themed food, and then everyone else tries to guess what that theme is.

COUNTRY COOK-UP

Similar to above, but each child chooses a country to represent with their dish. They might choose a traditional recipe from that country, a dish that evokes the "feel" of that country, or a decorative theme that gives a scenic representation of that country, such as decorating a cake appropriately.

TASTE AND CREATE

This is better suited to older kids as it probably requires judgements too advanced for most young children.

While your kids aren't home, cook up a recipe yourself. The age and abilities of your children will dictate how simple or complex it is.

Let the kids taste it, smell it, look closely at it.

Then- challenge them to re-create it!

To make this activity simpler, you could have the actual ingredients you used already on the table, and the kids then only need to try to work out proportions.

To add more complexity, let the kids actually try to work out what ingredients were used as well as amounts.

COOK UP A STORM!

Give each of your children a selection of ingredients. You can either give the same to each child, or different for each. You may also decide to allow them to use other items from your fridge or pantry- or not- and maybe to put a limit on how many extras they are allowd to use. Allow your kids to look through recipe books to decide what they will make with the ingredients available. Or extra creative kids might like to come up with their own invention. Enjoy your kid created meal or snack!

THEMATIC DECORATION

Allocate each a child a theme, or one of their choice, and let them each decorate a cake to represent that theme.
Here's some ideas for themes:

• Sports- their favourite footy team, a cake to represent a sports team they take part in, an olympic or winter olympic sport, an unusual sport.
  
  
• A board or card game.
  
  
• A maze.
  
  
• Space The Final Fronteir
  
  
• A holiday.
  
  
• A historical construction such as the Pyramids, Stonehenge, Leaning Towe of Pisa.
  
  
• An animal, bird, reptile or insect.
  
  
• Under The Sea
  
  
• A Fairytale, movie or computer game.

** IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS

Cooking can be fun... but it can also be dangerous! Supervision is very important, especially for younger children. Make sure your child has the understanding and skills needed for whatever he or she is doing- such as handling knives, using ovens and electrical equipment. Help from an adult may be needed throughout. Keep safety in mind at all times... and Happy Cooking!